Ios – Vertically align UILabel

iosuilabelxcode

I am trying to vertically align the text in the UILabel view of my app. The problem is that I want the text to be vertically aligned to the top and the size of the label to be 280 x 150. I am only able to achieve one of these 2 things. If I remove the line

[myLabel sizeToFit];

then the alignment of the text is alright but the size is messed up. But if I add the above line, then the alignment is messed up but the size is alright. How do I fix this problem.

I've added the code below –

CGRect labelFrame = CGRectMake(22, 50, 280, 150);
UILabel *myLabel = [[UILabel alloc] initWithFrame:labelFrame];
[myLabel setText:finalRecipe];
[myLabel setBackgroundColor: [UIColor lightGrayColor]];
[myLabel setNumberOfLines:0];
[myLabel sizeToFit];
[self.view addSubview:myLabel];

Best Answer

dont use UILabel for this. Use UIButton with UserInteractionEnabled = NO; and that has options to vertical or horizontal align text inside it.

Here you go:

Swift:

btnDetail.titleLabel?.numberOfLines = 5
btnDetail.titleLabel?.lineBreakMode = .byCharWrapping
btnDetail.contentVerticalAlignment = .top
btnDetail.contentHorizontalAlignment = .left
btnDetail.isUserInteractionEnabled = false
btnDetail.autoresizesSubviews = true
btnDetail.autoresizingMask = .flexibleWidth

Obj-C

[btnDetail.titleLabel setNumberOfLines:5];
[btnDetail.titleLabel setLineBreakMode:NSLineBreakByCharWrapping];
[btnDetail setContentVerticalAlignment:UIControlContentVerticalAlignmentTop];
[btnDetail setContentHorizontalAlignment:UIControlContentHorizontalAlignmentLeft];
[btnDetail setUserInteractionEnabled:NO];
btnDetail.autoresizesSubviews = YES;
btnDetail.autoresizingMask = UIViewAutoresizingFlexibleWidth;

Related Solutions

Ios – Vertically align text to top within a UILabel

There's no way to set the vertical-align on a UILabel, but you can get the same effect by changing the label's frame. I've made my labels orange so you can see clearly what's happening.

Here's the quick and easy way to do this:

    [myLabel sizeToFit];

sizeToFit to squeeze a label

If you have a label with longer text that will make more than one line, set numberOfLines to 0 (zero here means an unlimited number of lines).

    myLabel.numberOfLines = 0;
    [myLabel sizeToFit];

Longer label text with sizeToFit

Longer Version

I'll make my label in code so that you can see what's going on. You can set up most of this in Interface Builder too. My setup is a View-Based App with a background image I made in Photoshop to show margins (20 points). The label is an attractive orange color so you can see what's going on with the dimensions.

- (void)viewDidLoad
{
    [super viewDidLoad];

    // 20 point top and left margin. Sized to leave 20 pt at right.
    CGRect labelFrame = CGRectMake(20, 20, 280, 150);
    UILabel *myLabel = [[UILabel alloc] initWithFrame:labelFrame];
    [myLabel setBackgroundColor:[UIColor orangeColor]];

    NSString *labelText = @"I am the very model of a modern Major-General, I've information vegetable, animal, and mineral";
    [myLabel setText:labelText];

    // Tell the label to use an unlimited number of lines
    [myLabel setNumberOfLines:0];
    [myLabel sizeToFit];

    [self.view addSubview:myLabel];
}

Some limitations of using sizeToFit come into play with center- or right-aligned text. Here's what happens:

    // myLabel.textAlignment = NSTextAlignmentRight;
    myLabel.textAlignment = NSTextAlignmentCenter;

    [myLabel setNumberOfLines:0];
    [myLabel sizeToFit];

enter image description here

The label is still sized with a fixed top-left corner. You can save the original label's width in a variable and set it after sizeToFit, or give it a fixed width to counter these problems:

    myLabel.textAlignment = NSTextAlignmentCenter;

    [myLabel setNumberOfLines:0];
    [myLabel sizeToFit];

    CGRect myFrame = myLabel.frame;
    // Resize the frame's width to 280 (320 - margins)
    // width could also be myOriginalLabelFrame.size.width
    myFrame = CGRectMake(myFrame.origin.x, myFrame.origin.y, 280, myFrame.size.height);
    myLabel.frame = myFrame;

label alignment

Note that sizeToFit will respect your initial label's minimum width. If you start with a label 100 wide and call sizeToFit on it, it will give you back a (possibly very tall) label with 100 (or a little less) width. You might want to set your label to the minimum width you want before resizing.

Correct label alignment by resizing the frame width

Some other things to note:

Whether lineBreakMode is respected depends on how it's set. NSLineBreakByTruncatingTail (the default) is ignored after sizeToFit, as are the other two truncation modes (head and middle). NSLineBreakByClipping is also ignored. NSLineBreakByCharWrapping works as usual. The frame width is still narrowed to fit to the rightmost letter.

Mark Amery gave a fix for NIBs and Storyboards using Auto Layout in the comments:

If your label is included in a nib or storyboard as a subview of the view of a ViewController that uses autolayout, then putting your sizeToFit call into viewDidLoad won't work, because autolayout sizes and positions the subviews after viewDidLoad is called and will immediately undo the effects of your sizeToFit call. However, calling sizeToFit from within viewDidLayoutSubviews will work.

My Original Answer (for posterity/reference):

This uses the NSString method sizeWithFont:constrainedToSize:lineBreakMode: to calculate the frame height needed to fit a string, then sets the origin and width.

Resize the frame for the label using the text you want to insert. That way you can accommodate any number of lines.

CGSize maximumSize = CGSizeMake(300, 9999);
NSString *dateString = @"The date today is January 1st, 1999";
UIFont *dateFont = [UIFont fontWithName:@"Helvetica" size:14];
CGSize dateStringSize = [dateString sizeWithFont:dateFont 
        constrainedToSize:maximumSize 
        lineBreakMode:self.dateLabel.lineBreakMode];

CGRect dateFrame = CGRectMake(10, 10, 300, dateStringSize.height);

self.dateLabel.frame = dateFrame;

Ios – Top aligned UILabel, make text stick to top of label view -ios

There's a workaround for it:

Set a height & width constraint to your UILabel with a constant <= to the maximum height|width you want.
Set number of lines to zero.
Set the height in storyboard to fit only one line.
In your code after setting the text of UILabel call sizeToFit.

This would make your UILabel to resize within the bounds of the maximum width & height you want and text will always be top aligned.